Then do it Quiet your mind so you can truly hear what price is saying, and follow it Yeah more zen bullshit - but it fact So many voices in your head you can't think straight - let alone hear the whispers of PA At some point, with a clear head - those whispers becomes shouts (glaring signals) RN
Yo Mac. From one cadet to another - Scratch everything. Start a forest fire and burn down false concepts. It's going to be tough on your own. But you have an incredible advantage. You have some amazing people ready to help you every step of the way. It's a nuclear weapon in your attack arsenal. My advice - start your own space here through a journal. Then fill that space with work and commitment. If you do this, then based on the quantity of your desire and the proven quality of your well wishers, it is highly probable that you will succeed.
When ND mentions those triangles, she is looking for set ups that occur after a triangle break, or a trade off of one side of the range of a triangle. Without even knowing what trades she took today...I would assume she was looking for trades that are marked by my arrows. Arrow 1...downtrending triangle with price at the top of the range, short about 94.10 for a test and hopefully a break of the 94.02 bottom of the range, Target is 20 ticks I believe she says she aims for. if the range holds and it pops back to 94.10 area, scratch or small loss. Arrow 2. the double top, plus added resistence to the left, low of the range is 18 ticks...perhaps 20, this time is worked, it probably wont work every time...but if price does not go ahead like we want it too, try to exit for scratch. Arrow 3. short at 94.05 area betting on a test of the bottom range and or break. .85 target (20 ticks), it hits target this time...but if the bottom of the range holds, or quickly goes against u, try to exit quickly!. Arrow 4. Range break, and also retracement short at .85, this one is a give me set up in my opinion, 20 tick target.... These are drawn after the fact..I have tried to make them as real as possible by connecting the first 2 points of the price and only taking a trade on the 3rd test. Study those patterns for yourself and perhaps you can find new ones that you feel good with, BUT only take trades on those set ups. Thats the best advice I can give you...because, when you put up your charts with trades....its dart throwing in my opinion. If you are going to gamble...why not gamble on good set ups? *I could always be completely off in my analysis...I trade equities not CL or other futures futures. I hope to learn futures good enough to replace the stocks soon
Btw Mastering a set up; Does not mean it wins 100% It does mean; Knowing its strengths / its weaknesses Knowing when to use it / when not to use it (iow time to sit on yer hands) Knowing when its been invalidated (iow time to exit for a BE / small loss) Knowing it so well you can describe it in your sleep (iow you can recognize it as its forming) RN
I assume you're trading oil because you like trading chop. If you don't like trading chop, why are you trading oil?
Crude oil itself is NOT a decent instrument to learn how to trade. It is more manic than a female rock group on a Monday morning. Then to make matters worse, a 1 minute chart is used. Kind of like a teen just getting his (teen boys have worse driving records) learners permit and gets a 1000 horsepower sports car, it is an accident waiting to happen. Best leave crude oil and the 1min to more advanced traders. But, be assured, there are no restrictions to enter the game. The item being missed is called "learning by deduction", a trading method is nothing more than eliminating what does NOT work and milking what does work. That is why you are shooting from the hip at the little ducks at a carnival shooting tent. Then after you find what works with the technical picture you will get into the fun part of the whole process, that is finding out how you perform under fire. It will come, be patient, no rush, money does not have an expiration date, there will be plenty for you to capture once you understand why a method must be used.......... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47v-Zm-9Wgg Then when you have a method allow this to happen, let it take your breath away as the pocket change comes EASY.......... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUis9yny_lI Ok, I will climb back in my hole for a few weeks..
A thought about the 1 minute chart. I did spend time using the 1m and found it to have no value in the ES. The 1m has no other purpose except for the trader to BELIEVE it will get you in a trade at a better price and will get you out with less ticks on a loser and more ticks yanking a winner before giving back profits. Upon a close look at a 1m compared to a 5m you will see there are spots where the 1 shows faster entry/exit and yet there are times you will see the 5m was faster. Ironic, yes but there are times where entry for a profit target or an exit to be stopped out compared to giving back profits in a retrace can be entirely different. The method used has an influence on the above, for example: lets say your method is to trade by an angel guiding you, the angel could be any indicator you choose but in this case lets say it is the 20 ema. That method shows different crosses from a BUY or a SELL upon a cross depending on the 1m or the 5m. Check it out if you will. Again, the 1m really depends on ones choice of indicator used, but to espouse the 1m as a better road to travel has many a potholes. I could go on and on and post charts but I prefer to pass and let others prove me wrong, LOL!!
So here's a 2nd person choosing trades based on PA which were actual trades for me by my plan. Obviously there's more than randomness here. Mac, if you insist on trading a 1-min chart as your guiding light, master two of Bob Volman's setups. There's very little to think about with Volman as he's simply risking 10 to make 10 in the direction of a price movement based on a 20EMA.
Which may result in a high-probability trade. However, if one is going to go the price-movement route, he should understand that the bar interval itself is irrelevant, as are moving averages of whatever sort. Price moves in ticks, i.e., the prints of transactions. How one chooses to illustrate these movements is entirely up to the trader. He can use a 1m interval, or 2, or 3, or 7, or 19, or 473. The market doesn't care. The market moves in ticks. One may also choose to illustrate these movements via HLC bars, or OHLC bars, or candles, or lines, or dots, or mountains, or via any other plot of which the imagination is capable. Again, the market doesn't care. As for moving averages, they are nothing more than a form of moving trendline. As such, they don't provide support or resistance any more than trendlines do. They may provide a signal for the trader, but the signal won't be of any more value than a signal provided by a trendline. The disadvantage, of course, is that MAs are always late. And, again, the market doesn't care about any of this. The market moves according to the law of supply and demand. Imbalances between these two forces cause price to move in waves, buying waves and selling waves. These waves will last as long as the impulse lasts, at which point they will change direction, either sideways or to the opposite. The market will tell you what the strength of each of these waves are via their pace, extent, and duration. It can't help but do so. But it's up to the trader to understand the language. If and when he does, he will be able to judge the market by its own action. The market will tell him what to do. Hope nobody's insulted by this, but the market truly doesn't care about any of what we do in order to trade. This is not to say that the market is one's enemy, but neither is it one's friend, much less one's mother. If one wants to make money from it, it's up to him to understand what the market is doing and why it's doing it. Only then can he profit from these movements.